Letters
Universalism
Jim Dymond takes me to task for commenting that the Christian People’s Alliance argued robustly for opposition to the BNP in the recent London assembly elections, and makes the usual leftwing knee-jerk response to the Judeo-christian tradition on sweeping ideological grounds (Letters, May 8).
My point was mainly strategic and political, showing that there are strong grounds for a united front against fascism with the progressive trends within this tradition, which forms the ethical basis of socialism. As Erich Fromm shows in his books You shall be as gods and Beyond the chains of illusion: my encounter with Marx and Freud, the universalistic humanism of socialism and Marxism is rooted in the tradition of Hillel and Jesus.
It is futile to argue that the Judeo-christian tradition leads to oppression - the universalistic humanism of this tradition was also the inspiration behind the abolition of slavery and the struggle for human rights, equality and social justice. As far as the crusades are concerned, islam spread across the Middle East, to Spain and Turkey, etc, through force of arms, hundreds of years after Jews and christians (a branch of Judaism) were established in the Holy Land. One can see the reasons for the desire to ‘liberate’ the Holy Land and yet the tendency of the left is to speak on behalf of islam as if it is some kind of anti-imperialist force. History teaches otherwise.
It has also been argued equally sweepingly that socialism and communism result in oppression (Stalinism, Maoism, etc). It is a fact that ‘liberation theology’ has made itself felt in recent years and the progressive trends in religious movements will see religious values in broadly universalistic-humanistic terms. And that is where a commonality can be found, whereby the arguments for socialism can reach believers and non-believers alike the world over, emancipating humanity in the process.
The fact that some religious authorities have betrayed the universalistic-humanistic ethical principles of the Judeo-christian tradition must not allow us to forget the many victims of Nazism, fascism and Stalinism who have bravely fought for justice, liberty and fraternity in the name of this tradition.
Universalism
Universalism
Excellent
What an excellent article by Mike Macnair (‘Anything but Marxism’, May 1). The broad spread of the periods covered, the countries, the various lefts and their lines, and his placing in context of the 1917 Russian Revolution against developments since should be required reading - both for longstanding left trade union activists like myself and young people new to left politics.
A stand-out part for me was his statement, given the Stalinistic methods used by organisations such as the Socialist Workers Party and the Socialist Party, that “the left has a large, hostile periphery of ex-members who remain active in the broader movement” and “the far left is widely - and often accurately - perceived as undemocratic in its internal functioning”.
As an ex-SWP member, I have often wondered why the SWP never discussed why they lose so many members year on year. Are they really only concerned about having enough sub-paying members to fund their full-timers and publications, so anyone questioning their line can just leave (or be quietly expelled)? Although those leaving are written off, to their credit, they stay active in the broader movement but are wary of joining another left organisation.
Mike’s article shows that the huge legacy of bitterness this has created must be a major reason why halfway houses never attract the members expected and why the Campaign for a Marxist Party also has an uphill struggle. Mike is also depressingly spot on when he says the beneficiaries today are the anti-capitalistic right. People new to left politics soon see the divided left and wonder why they cannot unite. Near the end of his article Mike explains why.
In the same issue, Peter Manson’s article (‘Union struggles need political leadership’) was also spot on, especially about organisations like the SP trying to create a Labour Party mark two. Mike’s article also made a staggeringly obvious point we often fail to keep uppermost in mind, which is why New Labour went in the direction it did.
Both these articles and similar ones should be made into a pamphlet on why we need a Marxist party. Perhaps, because of the bad name Marxism has, it could be called Why we need revolution, not parliamentary illusions. The absence of such a pamphlet will see organisations such as the SWP and SP continue to mislead and embitter another generation of potential communists.
However, the Weekly Worker is a hard read for people new to left politics and it can take over a year before a reader begins to get a hold on the various points made from one week to the next. It isn’t always obvious what many of your polemics have to say about today. A classic example was your series about Rome. It looked at the historical and assumed that readers were already familiar with much of the period, its events and leading figures. Nowhere do I recall any links being made to political ideas today. The Weekly Worker does this a lot and it takes some time to ‘get’ your approach.
Excellent
Excellent
DSP saga
Facing expulsion from the Democratic Socialist Perspective, the DSP minority has published a website (www.lpf.org.au) explaining its point of view and the long struggle in the DSP that arose from the failure of the Socialist Alliance project.
As a result of the DSP’s heavy-handed tactics in the Socialist Alliance, all the other organisational affiliates fairly quickly withdrew, leaving only unorganised socialists besides the DSP. The DSP then managed to fight with and drive out large numbers of these unorganised socialists, performing a nearly textbook exercise in self-capture and encumbering itself with a high-maintenance organisation that exhausted its already hard-working members.
Read the whole sorry story in Alan Myers’ long factual account at www.lpf.org.au/?q=node/35 and Bob Gould’s commentary at ozleft.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/australian-dsp-divides.
DSP saga
DSP saga
Career advice
According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, estate agencies across the UK are closing at the rate of 150 a week, with 4,000 jobs going since January.
It would therefore be a good idea for estate agents to dust off their CVs and start applying for jobs at Tesco, Asda and Poundland. I would give B&Q a miss - in the USA, which is two years ahead of the UK, Home Depot, the equivalent of B&Q, has just closed 50 branches, with the loss of 5,000 jobs.
It is possible that we will see a repeat of the property slump of the early 1990s, when all estate agencies in some market towns closed down. However, this time around, the more far-sighted are turning themselves into residential letting agencies, given the boom in private rented accommodation.
Career advice
Career advice
Wasted years
This week’s Party Notes, the internal bulletin of the Socialist Workers Party, is a veritable feast for students of the art of spin. Distortion after distortion seems to be the tactic of the central committee. Nothing new about this, I suppose. Yet the present line peddled is worth deciphering because of what it tells us about the political direction of the SWP.
First up we have the news that April was a “brilliant” month for the number of recruits who had been signed up into membership. A whopping 144 joined “the party” and, lo and behold, a magnificent 26% of these are actually paying subs. Even then, Party Notes warns those comrades who might be carried away with the success of this huge proportion that most of those are paying below the odds - just a few quid a month seems to be the norm. No doubt the ace recruiters in the districts do not want to fleece them like Labour does. So ‘Pull your socks up’ is the message from on high. Whether this has the new recruits heading for the exit door remains to be seen.
Of course, there was also last weekend’s party council, with branches sending two delegates each . The bulletin notes that there was “a full, open and wide-ranging debate about the election results and the general political situation”. Naturally. And predictably a “vast majority” of delegates supported the central committee’s assessment of the situation, including its ridiculous excuses for the Left List’s dismal showing in the London elections.
Indeed, according to leaked reports, there was remarkably little dissent at last weekend’s gathering. What criticism there was came from a tiny number of comrades, but was immediately stamped on. In one sense this is remarkable, given that tens of thousands of pounds were wasted on the London disaster. Presumably, John Rees sits safe on his throne, the rank and file unwilling even to mildly criticise him for his ‘leadership’. Instead, discontented or demoralised members simply drop out of activity.
One notable omission from the Party Notes report of council is the Left List’s assertion, penned by Rees, that, following the May 1 elections when “the whole political spectrum moved right”, the “period opening up is in some ways like that at the end of the 1970s”, when “a tired Labour government … paved the way for Margaret Thatcher” (Respect-SWP statement to members, May 3). Just careless, perhaps?
Well, not quite. All is revealed in this week’s Socialist Worker, where Lindsey German is reported to have argued at party council that there had been “a dramatic change in politics at the top level, but it wasn’t a big shift to the right” (May 17). So take your pick, comrades. A lurch to the right or not? Clearly, there is some confusion in the inner circles of the central committee.
Similarly, the earlier Left List statement that seemed to downgrade elections to merely a “dimension” of the work that needs to be undertaken jars with Chris Bambery’s piece in the ‘Comment’ section of Socialist Worker: “If the left vacates the electoral field we will desert millions of working class people, who see voting as key and will look elsewhere for someone to represent them.” By contrast Rees’s May 2 Left List statement had asserted: “This will not necessarily be a primarily electoral struggle. It will be an industrial struggle, an anti-war struggle, an anti-fascist struggle and a struggle on many other fronts that we cannot foresee.”
Party Notes announces a plethora of such activity in the coming weeks. For instance, much energy is expected of members in building demonstrations and rallies against the BNP, in abortion and anti-Heathrow-extension campaigns, in industrial struggles, in a new round of Stop the War Coalition meetings etc, etc. All this is no doubt intended to boost the morale of SWP members by demonstrating the exciting period opening up.
A more cynical commentator than myself might add that the current round of hyperactivity could serve to divert the attention of members from the disastrous strategy pursued by John Rees. The eight years since Tony Cliff died have been eight wasted years for the SWP.
Wasted years
Wasted years
Minority view
Debate should continue within the CPGB on the correct strategy and tactics to adopt against parties such as the British National Party because tackling racism, chauvinism and xenophobia within the working class is an intrinsically important task for communists.
Differences between the minority and majority fall into three broad areas. First, the question of defining fascism. The creation of independent fighting squads is certainly an aspect of fascism, but after debating this at three aggregates the majority decided to downgrade this feature from a “defining” to an “essential” characteristic of fascism - perhaps in response to the observation that many a Bonapartist movement threw up fighting formations so they are hardly exclusive to fascism, and the incorporation of fighting formations into state structures would mean that fascism in power ceased to be fascist. We are, therefore, still some way from a proper definition.
In my view, both CPGB majority and minority have work to do in theorising the phenomenon of fascism. Discussion of fascism can hardly exclude the question of its ideology - eclectic though that ideology clearly is. Anti-establishment populism is what gives fascism mass purchase. Fascism is, of course, a movement of the right, but it deploys in highly distorted form the anti-capitalist language of the left - or at least propaganda against big capital, and especially finance capital that represent the internationalising ‘cosmopolitanism’ that fascism most despises.
That should not come as a surprise to Morgan Bostitch or Phil Kent (Letters, May 8). Fascism’s cooption of the politics of the left (and of some individual leaders of the left) is almost a “defining” characteristic of the phenomenon. Although thoroughly petty bourgeois in origin, fascism’s chauvinism and extreme nationalism appeals to what demoralised sections of the working class may believe represent their immediate material interests - in the face of developments such as competitive pressures from migrant labour, capital’s ability to relocate around the world and floods of cheap imports.
Second, the CPGB majority and minority differ over the definition of the BNP, which is undoubtedly seeking the cover of a degree of political respectability. It may even be in a process of transition towards a non-fascist type of far-right politics, although we should note that both Mussolini and Hitler were very capable of tailoring their message and tactics to different audiences and different political circumstances. But it is a major error to conflate the BNP and, say, the UK Independence Party.
The BNP can be distinguished from both mainstream parties and far-right formations such as Ukip by its ability to win working class support through representing itself as an anti-establishment insurgency. It does this on the basis of anti-migrant, anti-muslim and racist politics that explicitly rejects what the CPGB majority calls ‘official anti-racism’ - a challenge from which Ukip shies away.
Only the BNP maintains a ban on non-white members and a policy firmly encouraging non-white citizens and residents to voluntarily ‘repatriate’ themselves. By winning votes and council seats in the most deprived working class constituencies the BNP thus serves as a standing rebuke to the failure of the revolutionary left to organise itself on a coherent and principled basis.
Third, the sharpest differences within the CPGB are over strategy and tactics. The majority position deprioritises campaigning against the BNP to such an extent that it is in danger of lapsing into complacency. Neither the CPGB majority nor the minority believe that the BNP is on the verge of taking power. The ruling class has no need of fascism while the strategies of neoliberalism are so successfully checking the development of strong working class organisations. Nor do majority and minority dispute that the ruling class and its principal political representatives are the main enemy. We also agree that popular front tactics uniting all mainstream politicians are a profound mistake.
But the BNP is a direct threat to the unity of the working class and in many cases the physical well-being of those sections that it demonises. The CPGB should be articulating working class politics to challenge that threat. Flexibility of tactics is important. It is wrong to fetishise no-platforming of the BNP when no-platforming means that we forsake opportunities to directly confront racist and chauvinist arguments. But physical confrontations, picketing of BNP meetings in working class areas, mass blockades reminiscent of Cable Street will be part of any resurgent working class politics.
Fighting racism, chauvinism and xenophobia is central to building a working class movement that is capable of taking up its internationalist responsibilities. That communist task is much bigger than the BNP, but in present circumstances it can hardly go around the BNP.
Minority view
Minority view